


Lacewing Flies

by gingertart50



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1662344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingertart50/pseuds/gingertart50
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry buys lacewing flies. Hermione wonders what he is up to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lacewing Flies

“I’ll take three of the bat spleens, please,” Harry said to the serving wizard, “Plus a scoop of black beetle eyes, a bunch of the marsh viperwort and can you tell me, please, which genera of lacewing flies do you have in stock?”

“Um, I don’t know,” the assistant said, squinting at the labels on the tiny drawers, “I’ll get the manager.”

“Hello, Harry!”

Harry turned around, grinning at the young witch with the toddler in her arms.

“Hi, Hermione. Seems like only yesterday we were in here, buying our supplies for school, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does. Say hello to Uncle Harry, Hugo.”

Harry’s godson sucked his thumb, gazing solemnly at Harry and burying his other hand even more deeply in his mother’s bushy hair. “Going through a shy stage,” Hermione confided. “Oh, can you reach me down a flask of Nanny Origin’s Teething Potion, please, Harry? I’ve tried making my own but it isn’t as good.”

“Wow,” Harry said, standing on tiptoe to pick out a bottle of the potion. “A potion that Hermione can’t make? I don’t believe that.”

“Only because the recipe’s a trade secret,” Hermione huffed. “I can’t work out what she puts into it to make it so soothing. Thanks, Harry.”

The apothecary came out of the back room, frowning impatiently. “Someone asked about lacewing flies?”

“That was me. Can you tell me which genera you have in stock?”

The apothecary stared and Hermione could see the moment that he recognised Harry. His attitude changed instantly and she saw Harry control an urge to wince.

“Certainly sir, of course. We have green lacewings, family Chrysopidae, of the genera Ankylopteryx, Chrysopa or Xanthochrysa, brown lacewings of the family Hemerobiidae –”

“I’ll take three ounces of the Chrysopa, please,” Harry said firmly, “And six ounces of boomslang skin.”

“Harry,” Hermione muttered as the apothecary began weighing the rustling insects on a tiny brass scale, “This sounds suspiciously as if you’re brewing Polyjuice.”

“Who, me?” Harry dug into his robe pocket for his wallet. “Bit advanced for me, that.”

“I made it when I was thirteen, for heavens’ sake! What are you up to now?”

“Shopping,” Harry said airily. “Nothing suspicious in the slightest.”

“Are you coming to the Burrow for Sunday lunch?”

“Ah,” Harry stared sheepishly at the floor, “No, I thought I’d better give it a miss for a few weeks.” He hitched a shoulder into a half-shrug. “Let everyone cool off. Is Ron still steaming at the ears?”

“Of course not,” she said gently. “You know Ron, once he’s had a cathartic yell, he starts to think about things. Of course you shouldn’t marry Ginny just because everyone says you should. It’s your life, Harry, not theirs.”

“Have you spoken to Ginny?”

“She came round for a good sob,” Hermione said. “But she’s angry rather than grief-stricken. She feels you led her on and then dumped her.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Harry whispered, “I tried, I really did. But it wouldn’t have been fair to marry her when I couldn’t feel anything more than brotherly affection for her. She deserves more than that.”

Hermione smiled at the assistant and took the wrapped bottle of teething mixture.

“Thanks. Harry, come round for a chat, won’t you? I won’t let Ron hex you, I promise.”

“Of course I will, Hermione.” Harry leaned to kiss her cheek and grin at Hugo, who blew a damp raspberry at him and squealed with delight when he blew one back.

Once outside the shop, Hermione put Hugo in his charmed baby carrier and shrank her purchases, stowing them in her bag. Perhaps it was habit ingrained during the war that made her notice the ordinary-looking, middle-aged wizard who was leaning against a wall on the opposite side of the Alley smoking a cigarette. He glanced at her, then away again. He had unkempt, greying hair, a square face and brown robes. Hermione looked down at her son and from the corner of her eye she saw the shop door open as Harry came out. The stranger watched him, blowing out a thin drift of smoke that dissipated slowly in the still, chilly air. Hermione opened her mouth to call to Harry, attract his attention and warn him that he was being observed; then she realised that there was no need. Harry was looking straight at the other wizard and walking towards him.

“Three ounces of Chrysopa,” Harry remarked. Hermione busied herself resettling a baby for whom the extra attention was unnecessary but perfectly welcome.

The wizard nodded. “Adequate,” he said. The voice was unfamiliar, but the intonation of grudging approval reminded her of someone.

“The boomslang skin is all in one piece, six ounces.”

“They always shred it too finely,” said the other wizard in a clipped voice. “I hope that you didn’t allow them to slice the bat spleens, Potter?”

Hermione crouched down close to the stroller, hiding her face. Surely that couldn’t be…? She raised her head just enough, so that she was looking through a thin, fuzzy curl of her own hair. The stranger turned and his plain brown robe billowed just for a moment. The face was that of a stranger but the gliding walk, the air of unkempt arrogance and the sneer seemed so very familiar.

Hermione stood up and began walking slowly, gazing unseeing into shop windows as she passed them. Either Harry had come across a man with an uncanny resemblance to his lost Half-Blood Prince, or else someone was indeed brewing Polyjuice Potion; and no doubt brewing it perfectly.

As the two wizards began to walk briskly in the direction of Gringotts Bank, Hermione turned and followed. As she walked, she slipped her wand out of her sleeve and twitched it, casting a mild notice-me-not charm over herself, and then underneath it, a glamour to disguise her distinctive hair and face. Hugo giggled as she gently glamoured him into a blond with pink cheeks and blue eyes. When Harry glanced around, his gaze slid past her without pausing. Hermione grinned to herself.

Harry and his companion turned into Etern Alley, next to the toyshop that Hugo loved. It was natural to pause and allow him to babble and bounce, reaching a pudgy fist towards the enchanted toys in the window as she watched the two wizards slow down and then duck into a narrow doorway. Hermione swept Hugo along in his carrier, stepping carefully around some rather dubious-looking objects lying in the gutter at the back of the Wizarding butcher's. An arm shot out of the doorway, pressing the tip of a wand into her throat. Hermione froze, stifling a squeak.

“I did warn you that we were being followed, Potter,” said a voice out of the past. Deep, dark, perfectly controlled, it made the little hairs rise up at the back of Hermione’s neck.

“Finite incantatem,” Harry snapped. Hermione felt her concealment spells slide away like water, then the wand moved away from her throat.

“Miss Granger,” said the voice, and Hermione turned slowly to face its owner.

Black eyes gazed back at her, out of the so-familiar thin, sallow face. Snape stood with his arms folded. He had either changed or transfigured his robe because he was back in his habitual Death Eater, schoolmaster, funereal black.

“Mrs Weasley, actually,” Harry said, his amusement now obvious.

“It was the lacewings,” Hermione explained. “Only you would be so fastidious about the lacewings.” She stared up at the tall, thin wizard and allowed her face to break into a genuine smile. “How did you do it? Fool him, never mind us?”

Snape shrugged languidly.

“I had previously prepared an attenuated version of Nagini’s venom and injected it into myself, giving my body sufficient immunity to overcome the major effects of her bite.”

“The blood?”

“Some of it was real enough; I merely enhanced the effect with a glamour, exaggerated my weakness and trembling, Occluded my mind sufficiently to fool you both into thinking that I was dead and as soon as you had left, applied dittany and blood-replenishing potions from my first-aid kit.”

Hermione shook her head, grinning.

“I’m glad,” she said. She looked at Harry, at the pride glowing in his eyes, and added “For both of you.”

“Ten points to Gryffindor, Mrs Weasley,” Snape said with an air of smug superiority that made her laugh.

“Five years too late,” Harry pointed out.

“Come to dinner,” Hermione said. “And don’t worry about Polyjuicing; we’re good at keeping secrets. We’d be honoured if you would come.”

“Hermione cooks as well as she brews potions,” Harry informed Snape. “She does a bloody good beef Wellington and her sticky toffee meringue is to die for.”

Snape sniffed.

“And I won’t even expect you to teach the next generation about lacewing flies,” Hermione said.

“Thank Merlin for that,” remarked Snape but Hermione thought that she saw something warm igniting in the depths of his eyes; something that she had never expected to see, something very like joy.


End file.
